In Tax Fight, Republicans Seeking Fallback Position — WASHINGTON — With President Obama insisting on higher tax rates for affluent Americans and winning public support for the idea, Congressional Republicans find themselves in an increasingly difficult political spot and are quietly beginning the difficult search for a way out.

Obama to stress need to raise debt limit “without drama” — (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will renew his case for tax hikes on wealthy Americans to avert a year-end fiscal crunch and call for a smooth increase in the nation's borrowing limit in a speech to a business group on Wednesday, a White House official said.

A Good Deal Will Raise Tax Rates, Fix Entitlements — Although it isn't yet time to panic about the fiscal cliff, negotiations so far aren't exactly going well. The Republicans are committing themselves to an unsustainable principle of no marginal tax-rate increases whatsoever.

Democrats to Obamaland: Share your data — The hottest property to emerge from Barack Obama's lopsided victory over Mitt Romney is not the president's much lauded campaign team. Nor is it the shrewd turnout operation that catapulted him to victory. — It is something far more valuable that's …

Fox News Puts Karl Rove on the Bench — The post-election soul searching going on inside the Republican Party is taking place inside Fox News as well. Fox News chief Roger Ailes, a canny marketer and protector of his network's brand, has been taking steps since November to reposition Fox …

Adelson to Keep Betting on the GOP — LAS VEGAS—After spending more than $100 million mostly on losing Republican election campaigns this year, casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson said he planned to stay in the game and double down on his political donations.

‘Fiscal cliff’ warnings yet to faze Wall Street — View Photo Gallery — The ‘fiscal cliff’: Meet the key players: With the election behind them, Obama and lawmakers have turned their attention to the fiscal cliff. Here's a look at some of the leaders who will influence whether the country can avoid falling off the cliff.

Anguished fotog: Critics are unfair to condemn me — Ki Suk Han, 58, of Queens frantically tries to climb to safety yesterday as a train bears down on him in Midtown. He was fatally struck seconds later. … I was on an assignment, waiting for a train at the 49th Street subway platform, when I suddenly heard people gasping.

Susan Rice and the Senate's blame game — A variety of insults have been deployed in opposition to Susan Rice's likely nomination for secretary of state: She is not qualified; she's too aggressive; she “misled” the public following the lethal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.

How The Voter ID Crusade Backfired On Republicans — The Republican push to make it more difficult to vote this year — seen by many as a racially tinged attempt to keep Democratic turnout down — could not have failed more spectacularly, a top African American activist told a left-leaning think tank Tuesday.

A losing GOP hand — O holds all the fiscal-cliff cards — Republicans have a bad hand to play when it comes to the “fiscal cliff” coming up Jan. 1, when taxes will rise automatically on everyone and whopping defense cuts will be imposed automatically. — Did I say a bad hand?

Vote: Worst Political Prediction of 2012 — We have narrowed down our list of the best & worst political predictions this year and would like your help in making the final call. — Here are our three final candidates for the Worst Political Prediction of 2012

Biggs and Richwine: The Underworked Public Employee — The cliché is true: Government workers do tend to take it easier than their private counterparts. — With state and local governments struggling to balance budgets in a still sluggish economy, government employment has fallen …

French sperm count ‘falls by a third’ — Chemicals, diet and lifestyle may lower sperm count — The sperm count of French men fell by a third between 1989 and 2005, a study suggests. — The semen of more than 26,600 French men was tested in the study, reported in the journal Human Reproduction.

Republicans not handling election results well — PPP's first post election national poll finds that Republicans are taking the results pretty hard...and also declining in numbers. — 49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama.

Taking the Threat of Default Out of the Debt Limit — On Sunday, December 2, Secretary Geithner appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, CBS' Face the Nation, ABC's This Week, FOX News Sunday, and CNN's State of the Union and made the case for the Administration's balanced approach to reducing the deficit and strengthening economic growth.

The day's must-read political news and opinion pieces
are scattered across hundreds of news outlets and blogs,
too many for any one person to read.

Fortunately, memeorandum arranges all of these links in a single, easy-to-scan page. It auto-generates a news summary every 5 minutes, drawing on experts and pundits, insiders and outsiders, media professionals and amateur bloggers.